New wood burning from neighbor to the North

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bakes99

New Member
Nov 28, 2011
6
Victoria, BC
Hi all,
Just wanted to introduce myself as I've recently purchased and had installed a Pacific Energy Super insert, a couple weeks ago. Guessing you get a lot of new members this time of year. I really wish I had stumbled upon your site prior to having it installed, would have things done way different. Think it could be heating the living space much more efficiently then it is, maybe I'm expecting too much from it. My wood appears dry, and blazes like no one's business. Oh well, what are you gonna do.
Things on my todo list are to
1. fashion some sort of block plate or at least some roxul up there. (dreading the thought of pulling the insert out as I did not install it.
2. Hooking it up to outside air as there seems to be some cold air drafting in other rooms now. Can actually feel cool air streams in certain areas of the room when I turn away from the stove. Feel the stove is competing with the cold air being pulled from air leaks in the home. Hopefully someone will tell me if I'm way off here.
3. Move the fan control to the other side of the insert. The installer has fed the power cord underneath the insert, across the room air intake (for lack of a better word.) from the opposite side. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, would it get hot enough under there to damage the power cord?
4. I'm pretty sure I didn't get an insulated liner. Not sure what to do about that now.
5. Build a wood shelter, already picked up the materials and needed a good excuse to buy a new drill. Sweet deal on a Dewalt.

Mentioned these things to the installer post install, and pretty sure he's written me off as he won't respond to my queries. Even offered to pay for anything extra. So imgoing to try it myself. Any other ideas to make it more efficient would be appreciated.

On the up side, beautiful addition to the room, kids love it, and the wife really appreciates watching me split wood in the backyard,(if you know what I mean). Says it's quite manly. Sorry I know its a family forum.
Okay, I'll wrap up. Thank you sooooo much for everything I've learned so far and hope to be somewhat active around here, not that I'll have much to offer. Oh and I'll post some pics as soon as I find out how.
 
Neighbor 1500 miles to your N/North west:
Welcome

Dry wood really helps, a year or more old, cut split & stacked (CSS), sound like you have that covered :)
Wood shed is really nice too.

Other will chime in with experience working on inserts & OAK (outside air kits)
Pictures of your system really help.: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewannounce/27_2/
It takes a few tries but posting pictures is easy once you get the hang of it.

Lots of helpful & knowledgeable folks here.

Again Welcome
 
A warm welcome from here, yes, plenty join this time of year........

I joined almost a year ago and have learned loads since joining.

But to precis it down, the most important thing I learned was to get ahead with the woodpile so I'm always burning well seasoned wood..... ;-)
 
Welcome 99. You've come to the most informative and friendly place I've ever found on the web. You'll hear it several more times I'm sure but get next years wood in as soon as you can and then work on the next years. I'd get your self a moisture meter and use it until you absolutely know that the wood you are burning is seasoned and will show below 20% moisture.
From what you describe about the cord, it doesn't seem that it would get too hot there as you should have cool air coming in at the bottom. Don't know what it looks like esthetically though.
If you end up pulling your insert to stuff Roxul and add a block off plate, I would lay down a bunch of BB's before you put it back in. It really helps move that monster around. I have a 500 + pound stove and I can fairly easily move it in and out with the BB's. There are several threads here on block off plates that you can search on.

You'll find that one of the side benefits of heating with wood is the extra toys you get to have (sweet DeWalt drill for instance) and the rationalization for them is ever so easy to explain to the wife. Just look at some of the signature lines of the members here. We like our toys and seem to have this need to tell people about them. :)

Good luck in this new endeavor. Glad to have you.
 
Welcome to the forum. ONe great thing about a forum like this is that people who don't know much about wood stoves get to answer questions, so here goes:

1. don't know
2. I have an outside air kit because code required it. I am pretty sure I don't need one since my house is very leaky. The stove will either suck air from the room or suck air from outside through the OAK. I think for most people the reason they add an OAK is that the stove isn't getting enough air because the house is not leaky enough. If you think the stove is causing air to leak into the house (which it is doing), then an OAK might be one solution. The question is whether there sould be almost as much air leaking without the stove. Another solution might be to fix most of the leaks, leaving a way for air to get to the stove room. In other words, don't fix all the leaks. Even with the OAK you will want to fix the leaks, so maybe try fixing them first, invest in the OAK only if needed.
3. I forget the question.
4. Insulated liners are needed if the liner is in an unheated area such as an exterior chimney or outside. If the liner runs through the house I think an uninsulated flue is usually built to allow heat from the flue to warm up the house. You just don't want to cool the flue too much or you wil have poor draft and reosote accumulation.
5. I imagine Victoria BC is rainy a lot of the time, especially winter. You definitely need that drill.
 
Like you, I had my insert installed before I discovered Hearth.com. Consequently I have an uninsulated liner in an exterior brick chimney and no block-off plate. Still, It works pretty well and can heat the living room to uncomfortably warm if I let it. I suspect it would heat up a little faster and I might burn a bit less wood with the insulated liner, but it works pretty well as is. You can always add the block off plate or insulate the damper area; insulating the liner is more difficult but I have heard of some folks pouring insulation down the chimney around the liner. You could search on here for threads on that subject. My suggestion is run it the way it is this winter and see how it works, You can always make modifications next summer.

And welcome! Lots of friendly folks on here.
 
Hey, me again.
Thanks for the big welcome. Had another great fire going tonight. Since I've had it installed a few weeks ago, I've been a daily burner....and loving it.
Need to be set straight regarding using Outside Air with my PE Super. I have done some reading on this and, no surprise, it's been discussed ad nauseum with many points of view.

If I understand correctly, the Outside Air is mandatory and suited to homes which are well sealed and room air is used in older homes that aren't air tight. This is where I'm lost. Would it not be a preferred option, to use OA in a non sealed home as it would not be continually drawing OA into your home to feed the flames???? Our home is not air tight, I can feel small drafts near some windows and doors, however when I light a fire, there are significant cool air streams that develop and move toward the fireplace area.
We are leaning toward OA supply ... would this resolve the cold air streams? With PE inserts, there is no OA kit, it is set up to allow for OA - we just have to open up our outside ash clean out tray. Has anybody sealed a PE insert (to close it to room air supply, as well as keeping cold outside air from coming into the room)? any tips?
This OA supply feels like a major step - is it worth doing? Does anybody recommend other things to try first? Guessing the block plate is probably the go to approach. Our primary concern as I noted is the cold air streams.

Going to invest in a moisture meter, great idea. Also like the idea of the BB's, but wouldn't know where to begin with that. I can see me losing a finger or two, trying to get the BB's out from under there. Im going to try and upload a pic, but keep in mind, it's still a work in progress. So here's my baby.
 

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Welcome neighbor. That's a beautiful sight, no need to apologize.
 
bakes99 said:
Hey, me again.
Thanks for the big welcome. Had another great fire going tonight. Since I've had it installed a few weeks ago, I've been a daily burner....and loving it.
Need to be set straight regarding using Outside Air with my PE Super. I have done some reading on this and, no surprise, it's been discussed ad nauseum with many points of view.

If I understand correctly, the Outside Air is mandatory and suited to homes which are well sealed and room air is used in older homes that aren't air tight. This is where I'm lost. Would it not be a preferred option, to use OA in a non sealed home as it would not be continually drawing OA into your home to feed the flames???? Our home is not air tight, I can feel small drafts near some windows and doors, however when I light a fire, there are significant cool air streams that develop and move toward the fireplace area.
We are leaning toward OA supply ... would this resolve the cold air streams? With PE inserts, there is no OA kit, it is set up to allow for OA - we just have to open up our outside ash clean out tray. Has anybody sealed a PE insert (to close it to room air supply, as well as keeping cold outside air from coming into the room)? any tips?
This OA supply feels like a major step - is it worth doing? Does anybody recommend other things to try first? Guessing the block plate is probably the go to approach. Our primary concern as I noted is the cold air streams.

Going to invest in a moisture meter, great idea. Also like the idea of the BB's, but wouldn't know where to begin with that. I can see me losing a finger or two, trying to get the BB's out from under there. Im going to try and upload a pic, but keep in mind, it's still a work in progress. So here's my baby.
Click to expand...

Once the stove is out, you spread the BB's over the hearth. The stove rolls back over them and you leave them there so if you have to pull the stove again, it rolls out over them.

Nice looking setup you have.
 
Welcome to the forum! You have a lovely setup.

There's alot of great info on this board. I joined several weeks ago and have learned ALOT about wood burning.

Quick question for you, what is in front of your stove? a fire protectant rug? I'm looking at buying something similar for the front of my stove, but haven't found anything appealing yet.
 
steve19 said:
Welcome to the forum! You have a lovely setup.

There's alot of great info on this board. I joined several weeks ago and have learned ALOT about wood burning.

Quick question for you, what is in front of your stove? a fire protectant rug? I'm looking at buying something similar for the front of my stove, but haven't found anything appealing yet.
Click to expand...

It's a hearth pad. Think it's made of cement board. Our installer placed it as an added security measure. Just till I extend the tile. I kind of like it though.
Thanks for the welcome.
Oh and I'm definitely doing the BB trick. Genius .
 
I don't have an outside air kit and it's never been a problem. I have a reasonably tight late 1990's vintage house.
 
Trying to come up with other things to try like the block plate, maybe sealing some of the windows a little more. Any other ideas would be appreciated. Our installer says he put a number of these units in since ours and have not been a problem. He thinks it's just our house. Maybe he's onto something. He initially tried to talk us into the vista, saying that the Super was going to be way too hot. Quite the contrary. Even in the room it's in, it's not overly warm. Anywho, I'll keep checking in.
Thanks again
 
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